RDU Neil

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

From a yearly game that takes place in a 31 year old campaign.
 
Me: "So you probably don't remember this, but these guys in the crystal armor and swords... they showed up in 1994, sent back in time to take out Capt. Hero. (A PC back then.)"
 
Player: "Holy crap. We've played so long we are now IN the dystopian future that they came from!"
 
Me: "I don't know whether that is cool or very sad."

IMHO no Hero System player is in a position to question anyone over speculating in too much detail.

The August, 2018 issue of Scientific American has an article on, "Is Dark Matter Real?" The authors point out various flaws in the theory -- notably including the failure to otherwise detect any of the hypothesized particles it's made of, which the LHC should now be producing if the theories that predict them were correct.
 
The authors prefer Modified Gravity theories. They admit these theories also have problems, and some have been killed by the recent dual observation of colliding neutron stars, but they suggest that the failures of Dark Matter theory should set astrophysicists looking harder for alternatives. (including one really wild alternative in which the phenomena ascribed to the gravity of dark matter might not be due to gravity at all.)
 
ADDENDUM: I forgot the most important part! The three theories -- particle dark matter, modified gravity and superfluid dark matter -- make different predictions for low surface brightness galaxies and the very early universe. Upcoming telescopes such as the James Webb and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope should be able to make observations that confirm or deny. (Or, perhaps, upend everyone's theories and send theorists back to square one.)
 
Dean Shomshak

To me, it's $7 a month to watch Young Justice legally. As much as I love the show, I can't justify it. I already have Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation and Hi-Dive and it can't stack up to any of them.

Cool. I just sent a couple of one-way tickets to Beijing to the White House, envelope marked "You've Won a YOOOOGE PRIZE! You're AMAZING!"
 
Let's see what happens.

Cool. I just sent a couple of one-way tickets to Beijing to the White House, envelope marked "You've Won a YOOOOGE PRIZE! You're AMAZING!"
 
Let's see what happens.

I read one blog post by Ron about how he always loved the Mind Games supplement, because it didn't proscribe good vs. bad, etc., but gave you a set of interesting characters to role play against that was driven by "play" rather than set expected outcomes.

He seemed to imply that other 4th Edition supplements DID proscribe these things... which I never found. The Zodiac supplement, the Olympians supplement, Sanctuary, etc. Later, all the Dark Champs/Hudson City stuff, etc. There were so many great characters and settings that could be interpreted in so many ways, and didn't enforce stereotypical play. I never felt 4th Edition every fell into the... taken to the extreme... White Wolf trap, or the era of D&D supplements that had to be played in order, and one adventure had to follow another, etc.
 
I'm just not sure what was found by you and Ron in 4th that made it not work... as all the things I was trying to do with Champs finally came to fruition with 4th Ed.

I personally like the CC book.  It most reminds me of 4th ed but with the current rules.  I think HERO is cursed with the 3 steps forward 2 steps back with each edition.

Agreed, as I'd like to understand the POV expressed here, as it is the exact opposite of how I feel. I have not ever, in my 40 years of gaming, enjoyed a pre-built adventure, and certainly never used anything more than a rough outline from one, like "Road Kill" for a one off "not everyone showed up for the game" type of thing. 
 
To me, the experience of a game evolving and being defined "during play" is the real enjoyment I get... not spending massive time trying to create everything beforehand. Entirely different philosophies of gaming, so I'd like to read more about what is being expressed here. 

Luck comes up a lot, but I have a major house/bennie rule tied to it. Even the more classic Luck Roll is a thing, when it comes to "is there/isn't there?" moments that come up. 
 
"I punch the accelerator and floor it through the red light, so I don't lose the escaping bad guy!"  "Roll a luck roll... good luck, you make it through no problems, neutral you'll need a driving check to avoid cross traffic and get through. Bad luck, you get t-boned!"
 
that kind of thing.  Used when a judgment call from the GM really is more of a random chance... and only when that random is dramatically important. 

Here are my Luck Chit rules... will seem like a lot of text, but in play, it is quick and dramatic... toss a chit for a certain effect.
 
--
 
Luck & Luck Chits 
Luck cost 5 pts per level. (Price doubles for each 3 levels bought (so fourth level of Luck costs 10 points) For each level of Luck purchased, players gain: 
1d6 of Luck to add to a Luck Roll that can only have positive results. 
They randomly draw +1 Luck Chit at the beginning of the game from “the bag.” 
------ 
Luck Chit Rules 
Each PC draws one Luck Chit from “the bag” +1 Chit for every level of Luck at the beginning of the game.  “The bag” contains 72 Chits in the following assortment:  30 White Chits, 20 Black Chits, 20 Blue Chits, 1 Red Chit, 1 Gold Chit.  A player may decide to “throw a chit” at any point during play where they think it will benefit them, the group or the story to do so.  The chits provide the following benefits in play. 
White Chits:  Lowest rank.  Using a white chit allows ONE of the following by choice of the player: 
Re-roll one roll you control 
Take an Abort Action at any time without cost of a regular Action. 
Take a Recovery at any time without cost of a regular Action or any defensive penalties. 
Defensively move a Hit Location result one level up or down on the HL chart. (Only used in Heroic games where Hit Location is used.)
Black Chits: Middle rank.  Using a black chit allows ONE of the following by choice of the player: * 
Any one of the benefits as listed under White Chits. (see above) 
Any one benefit as listed under Blue Chits. (see below)
BUT...Throwing a black chit allows the GM to draw a chit to add to his/her pool of NPC/Villain chits. 
Blue Chits: High rank.  Using a blue chit allows ONE of the following by choice of the player. 
Any one of the benefits of the White chits as listed above.
May remove a single die from a 3d6 roll you control, to maximize chance of success/hit. (Making the roll a "3" or less does not activate a critical hit.) 
Power Stunt:  Player may choose to utilize active points of a power of their character for an effect not specifically paid for with points, but within the SFX of the power.  Ex:  A character with an EB defined as “flame blast” wishes to extinguish a fire in a doorway blocking escape for civilians. The character does not have a power that would normally allow him to do this, but by throwing a blue chit, for one action, he can put the active points of the EB into Change Environment: Extinguish/Reduce Normal Fires (or something similar) and the player can then perform the desired action. 
Minor Scene Change:  Player may choose to alter or set a small piece of the scene for character or story advantage.  Ex.  “There is a pack of dry matches in the old hunting shack. Just what I need to light my torch to fight the vampire!” or “As I fly in, I see an open skylight allowing me access to the building without breaking in!”   GM and group agreement on what is appropriate necessary. 
Make the impossible, possible:  Player may throw a blue chit to turn an action with little or no chance of success, into one with a standard chance of success.  Ex.  Even for a superhero, diving through the window of a moving car, snatching the kidnapped child out of the seat and out the other side window without causing a crash or hurting the child would be nigh impossible. A blue chit makes this a simple matter of Acrobatics and grab roll situation.
Insert Minor Dramatic Moment: The player may state a dramatic moment into a scene that can initiate story, resolve story. Similar to Minor Scene Change, Minor Dramatic Moment is less about adding an element to the current scene, as to initiating a scene or resolving one. Example: Vigilante Squad has just finished off Don Montelli's goons in the warehouse, as the sounds of sirens and stamping of SWAT boots approaches. A player pushes forward a blue chit and says, "As the police rush in, the smoke clears to find the bodies of Montelli's men, but no sign of us. The police surround the area and helicopters sweep, but we are gone, vanished in the night. My intent is that we get away and don't have to hassle with the law... at least this time."  This would be appropriate, assuming the table agreed it was within the bounds of the fiction, and didn't make things unfun, etc.
Bypassing a successful Block.  Player may choose to throw a blue chit so that an attack that is successfully Blocked still carries through, effectively negating the block.  Only a blue chit thrown in response can reassert the Block’s success. 
Move a result on the Hit Location chart up or down 3 places, either defensively or offensively. (Only used in Heroic games where Hit Location is used.)
Gold Chit: There is only one Gold Chit and it has unique abilities.  Using the gold chit allows ONE of the following by choice of the player. 
Any one of the benefits of the white, black or blue chits as listed above, without GM drawing a chit. (But this would be a waste.)
Primary use of the gold chit is to allow the player to become storyteller/GM in powerful ways.  By spending the gold chit, the player gets to insert a scene, event, plot point, result or other situation that they wish to occur.  This normally focuses on their character and that character’s Story, but it can encompass the group if all player’s agree. GM still has last word, but mostly it is a group decision on “Is that cool and interesting as a story, and does it make sense for what is happening currently?”  Whatever the event/situation/scene, it should have significant effect on current and even future plots, though specific results or repercussions may be unforeseen. Player intent is key. What is the "outcome" the player wishes to occur?
             Red Chit: There is only one Red Chit and it has unique abilities.  Using the red chit allows ONE of the following by choice of the player. 
                        Exactly the same benefits as the Gold Chit, BUT the GM then takes possession of the Red Chit and has it to be activate a very clear obstacle/challenge/things-go-badly scene against the PCs. You spend the Red Chit knowing that karma is a  bitch.
 
GM: Draws after all players.  One chit per PC, plus chits for any NPCs/Villains who may have Luck. 
Unluck:  Unluck reduces the number of Luck chits drawn for every level.  This primarily effects the GM and the use of Luck chits for certain NPCs, as it is unlikely a PC would take Unluck.  

I allowed it as an option for many years in a variety of genres and it works very well in execution, at least in my opinion and that of the players in various games who used it. It makes its usefulness quantifiable and puts it entirely into the control of the player. It is direct probability manipulation as opposed to hand-wavium.
 
Don't get me wrong, I think that the vague version of Luck in the HERO System offers something as well, as a sort of deus ex machina power. The Intervention ability in Here There Be Monsters is a direct re-casting of the by-the-book Luck power for instance. It's essentially a "miracle" power; roll the dice and hope for the best.
 
However for most "lucky" sfx characters, the direct dice result manipulation version is more practical and gets less tiresome, again in my opinion.
 
A good indication of it's efficacy is that in my experience back in the day players who knew what was up did not bother taking the standard Luck power in RAW, instead relying on skill bonuses or skill levels with the sfx of "lucky" and other such crab-wise attempts to model luck as succeeding more often than average at various tasks. The occasional newb might take Luck, but would invariably be disappointed with it in practice and regret taking it. I offered up the original version of the point based variant for a player wanting a probability manipulating super, and it worked out well and became available for later games. Players started to take it here and there...not so many as to indicate that it was too good and not so few as to indicate that it sucked...it sat nicely in the "goldilocks zone" of providing good value for the cost but not so much as to make it stupid to not take some.
 
 

I use Killer Shrikes method for my MHI games. 
 
http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Paradigm_Abilities_Talents.aspx

So, I know I'm much less detail oriented than some folks on these boards, and pretty loose in my rule interpretations if they make the game unfun, but I do appreciate the more structured views of others, and wanted to get some feedback.
 
Drivers for making new rule:
For END, we never liked tracking END in the RAW sense, and generally ignored it, even in supers games.  BUT, we always enjoy "Pushing" as a way to feel quite superheroic. and END is necessary to balance Pushing, obviously. ALSO, Active Point caps were important, but hazy and over time were often ignored when certain complex builds "broke the limit."  
What I came up with to address all of this is as follows.
 
END is a stat that indicates the maximum AP output of any one attack, allowed for that character. The END stat of the character shows the AP cap for the character/game. The END stat for a character must be bought to the AP level desired for their standard attack. (e.g. if they tend to have max 14d6 Energy Blast, they need to have 70 END on the sheet.) No limitations allowed for this base END stat. No attack can surpass that AP limit without pushing, this includes added DCs for maneuvers. (This means, even if the character bought a 15d6 EB, they could only do 14d6 if their END was only 70).  
So at this point, essentially I'm just establishing the AP limit for the character/campaign, right on the sheet. Look at the END stat, and you know what their max attack is. Done.
 
Any use of powers at the END/AP limit or below, do not cost incremental END. (Don't have to track action by action END costs.) Any use of a power above the END/AP limit require "Pushing" the power. A character can Push for up to 1/2 the active points of the attack. Pushing costs the AP being pushed, as a reduction in the total amount of END available for the character. (e.g. Push my 10d6 EB up to 15d6, so my END of 50 is reduced to 25.) Characters with reduced END are limited to the AP of their REDUCED END for further attacks. (With only 25 END, I can only do 5d6 EBs for the moment.) END is recovered as normal. (Spend an action to add Recovery to END total.)  
This does a really good job of making the cost of the Pushing dramatic, as the character just unleashed hell, but is now weak and can't really fight well until they take time to suck it up.)
 
Overall, the basic approach feels very elegant. Easy to see the AP of a character's attacks. (And Defenses almost always are less AP than the attacks of the game, in my experience.) It helps to avoid the work around, where various abilities stack to put the attack way beyond the AP level of the game. (The 40 AP game with the 40 Str, Martial Artist with Damage Classes and 8d6 Hand Attack and a weapon, etc. Suddenly dishing out 24d6 or whatever.)  The damage of an attack can't exceed the END of the character. Very simple.
 
Pushing also becomes very dramatic... not being something you can do every time... as you need to recover just to get back to normal operating levels.

You can get really specific, and make any Defenses that also would normally use END be reduced as well, until recovered. This tends to only come into play with "active defenses" like force wall/barrier, since normal resistant defense, no one buys it "costing END" even for force fields, but if they did, it would.
 
In play, this has worked really well, where heroes realize they need to Push to really hurt the big bads, or save the crashing bus, lift the battleship, etc. But they know they will be weakened and ineffective after the fact, for a couple rounds at least. So they have to be strategic with its use.
 
The only downside, is that allowing 1/2 AP pushes, can send certain attacks into really high dice, so understanding that a 70 AP/END campaign will have some 21d6 shots being thrown at least a couple times during the game, so usually it is the GM that needs to be prepared that their villains defenses are appropriate.
 
Thoughts on this? We generally like it. It helps in character construction, campaign balance, and dramatic super-combat moments.  (Heroic level games, where pushing is NOT common, really just ignore the whole END thing in general.)

Hera android is sounding positively hideously terrifying. Spraying nano-bots at people the forcibly transform them on a physical and genetic level into an animal. I'm picturing this semi-sentient mist/sludge spewing from her outstretched hand and engulfing the unlucky victim who screams and screams until their screams become the honking cries of a goose or braying of a donkey.
 
Nastiest... supervillain... everrrrrrr.

I really like what you've done, Neil, 
 
and honestly, reading / brainstorming with Hugh was always one of my favorite things to do when I was active here in the past, so just reading this thread has been a blast for me.
 
I don't have anything at all to add on what you've cobbled together here (again, I really like it.  It doesn't work for me, but I respect the solidity of it).  I just chimed in to mention something to you:
 
I played, many years ago, in a group that didn't track END.  They had come from another system that was less book-keeping intensive, so I understood why they would want to minimize the bookkeeping.  Let's face it: few games out there take as much real time for combat as does HERO.  At any rate, their solution for Pushing was to burn Stun instead of END.  It kept them from having to track END separately, and had the side effect of keeping players from pushing until it was one of those dramatic, all-or-nothing moments, which was kind of fun.
 
Just thought I'd mention it.
 
Have fun!
 
Duke
 

Overall, sounds like you are in playtest territory - better to see how it goes than look for new issues.
 
To the above, I have come to like the +0 to -9 STUN" rule.  This is "heavily stunned" but still on your feet.  Applying this rule - that the character is still conscious, does not fall over, etc. - largely removes the "hit him while he is down so he stays down" issue.  A hit in that state still does double Stun.
 
I especially like it because it continues one issue I really liked when I first saw Hero - other games tended to "you are either fully combat-capable or you are dead".  Hero added "dying", "KO'd" and "Stunned", plus "heavily stunned" although it took me longer to recognize the last one.
 
But the idea that you can only recover from being below that level once in a combat makes sense (you could even let some level of luck chit bypass that, reviving either myself or one other character without it counting as the "one time" for that combat.

I think there can always be an easy formula but finding it might not be so easy.
 
Neil has the beginnings of a great idea, it is obvious we both see potential and we are talking details.  HERO is indeed complex with a lot of moving parts.  The question is that when you change a fundamental mechanism how far you have to change the other bits.
 
I think that we either have to change almost nothing, just like Neil has with his group, or you need to make wholesale changes (and this is where you lose the advantages of a system played for decades that you can balance on instinct).
 
I am a tinkerer and so wholesale is attractive to me.  The idea that we have an element of the build that explicitly dictates the relative power of the character is interesting.  I wonder if you need a different way of buying powers.  If you are an 80AP character then you simply buy the powers you have access to.  You pay for access to offensive powers - maybe 40 points for full AP, 30 for 75% AP, etc.  That makes AP a multiplier in power.  You also pay for access to defensive powers.  This is needs to balance to offence and so you pay (1/2 AP) points for half campaign max defences, 3/4 AP (for 3/4 defences) and AP points for max defences.  This means the more you pay for access to high offences, the more you need to pay for defences.  I think SPD also needs to balance against offence and so I want to have SPD 4 for free and each additional point of SPD cost AP/2.  This requires a campaign to have a max defence listed (which players can exceed if they want to pay for it).
 
This is all completely off the top of my head but it is attractive because it is actually quite simple.  God knows if it is balanced.  I also need to think about non-offensive or defensive powers.
 
I don't think Neil was thinking of going this far, it is essentially re-writing the system but it is the direction I think the conversation is going.  If we want something more limited then I think we want to stick almost exclusively to how END and fatigue works.  ?

Luck comes up a lot, but I have a major house/bennie rule tied to it. Even the more classic Luck Roll is a thing, when it comes to "is there/isn't there?" moments that come up. 
 
"I punch the accelerator and floor it through the red light, so I don't lose the escaping bad guy!"  "Roll a luck roll... good luck, you make it through no problems, neutral you'll need a driving check to avoid cross traffic and get through. Bad luck, you get t-boned!"
 
that kind of thing.  Used when a judgment call from the GM really is more of a random chance... and only when that random is dramatically important. 

You'd probably have the "Dallas Jello Pudding Yes" team and the "Los Angeles Puffy Oatmeal No" team.